I have used taobaofocus for one transaction of four cakes of pu. I was satisfied with them. Everything went very smoothly. They responded to each step of the transaction within minutes. If I remember correctly you do not have the 5-7 week slow boat option. The tea arrived in good condition.

berlinbuy wrote:I would like to talk about my taobao shopping experience. I do think taobaoring.com is a good agent. Really customer care, low service fee, low shipping fee, but so good service. After I place my order, they just confirm all of them half a day, the speed impressed me a lot. I bought 15 items from 3 taobao sellers, and the China domestic fee only 28yuan. The biggest surprise is that when all my items arrive at their Beijing office, taobaoring check and take picture of them ,and sent email to me, telling that I make the second payment. In the email, they sent me items pictures, total weight of my items, and EMS fee, very detailed. Then I made the 2nd payment, and they ship it quickly. So only 5 days later, I received my parcel. Everything just goes so well, and my items arrive safe and sound. Great service~~~

They did the same with me. I was quite happy to receive a photo of the tea as soon as they got it. I think a big factor in all this is your location and the resulting shipping expense.

I had a really bad experience with Obook and I would not recommend them to anyone that wants to order from taobao.

Upon request of service, they would send you a lengthy and poorly written excel document to cover their grounds and they would refer you to it often when you have questions.

Not only they charge you a lot for their service, they also seem disinterest in your request. I asked a simple question on whether a seller is reputable and they responded by saying (all caps) "DON'T CHALLENGE MY PROFESSIONAL JUDGEMENT"... And then call me ignorant...

That says a lot about their business. I can actually read and write Chinese so the reason I hired them is to minimize my time working on buying. NOT THE CASE!

They were the first one that popped up when you google taobao agent buying overseas and that's how I found them. I think they have a deal with a site that writes the field guide on how to purchase from taobao.

Its the first time that i try to buy from taobaofocus and will be the last.i try to buy a teaboat,and on there shipment rules they said,that you by demand,they can send them by Sal.I asked them to send me by Sal the teaboat and they answer that they only can send by ems or airmail.For a one piece they charge me with 55usd ems or 48 usd for airmail and the price of the product is 13usd with the comission.Like i said 1st and the last.The other companys offer independently the sizes or weight,allways has the Sal option and why this not.I planned to buy more things from them and because of that ido not buy anything else.The weight is less then 2kg.

taobaofocus and most of the other proxy services are pretty up front about their fees, what the shipping costs will be, and what their shipping options are. If you chose not to pay attention, that's your fault.

wyardley wrote:taobaofocus and most of the other proxy services are pretty up front about their fees, what the shipping costs will be, and what their shipping options are. If you chose not to pay attention, that's your fault.

But the poster states he did read their rules. I do not know if focus does this per item or how they list this information.

It could have been that the item with packaging exceeded the SAL weight limit of 2000 grams ... at least that is what it is for items shipped from Japan. This limit always seemed a bit odd to me.

An advantage of ebay and buying from more communicative vendors is that they will state right with the item what shipping items a product will qualify for if purchased individually or you can find out easily.

Although I have never purchased anything via taobao, from many things I have read, unless you are dealing with someone you trust completely (and is helpful in such a way that they are actually earning their piece of the action), you are better off walking away.

wyardley wrote:taobaofocus and most of the other proxy services are pretty up front about their fees, what the shipping costs will be, and what their shipping options are. If you chose not to pay attention, that's your fault.

But the poster states he did read their rules. I do not know if focus does this per item or how they list this information.

When I used them in the past, I'm pretty sure EMS and DHL were the only options available (at around $50, even for the minimum 500g weight). This has been my experience with a few other Taobao proxies also. It looks like they now claim to offer air post also.

But yes, using a proxy service usually adds a lot to the cost, especially since they often repackage orders in a way that adds some size / weight, and sometimes you're hit with extra fees for currency conversion, etc.

I'm not sure if "SAL" is different from "Air Mail" or not. My understanding is that there's no shipping container / boat mail from China anymore, but that SAL uses surface mail in both the sending and receiving country, and air mail in between.

I've only used Taobao Now and Taobao Focus, but when I've done comparisons in the past, all the common services that have an English language site seem to have roughly comparable services, fees, and shipping options.

wyardley wrote:When I used them in the past, I'm pretty sure EMS and DHL were the only options available (at around $50, even for the minimum 500g weight). This has been my experience with a few other Taobao proxies also. It looks like they now claim to offer air post also.

Air post usually takes 2 weeks (but subject to occasional delay). I can't see how it's possible for an agent to offer SAL though, because if there is any problem with the product, it would always be too late to discuss with the seller by the time the package arrives in US.

DHL doesn't take tea now. I heard it's because as a private company, it always get more customs check than USPS (EMS) and it wants to be extremely careful.

Since air post only covers packages below 2kg, EMS is pretty much the only option left.

* good and reliable* responsive* 8% service compare with most agent 10%* no SAL shipping, but good reduction on EMS* can use Western Union which gives a better rate than Paypal when over a few hundreds dollars.* web site is well layout and design* goods are well packed

Here's the details:I got some teething problems registering with them, but the problem wasn't from them, it was because Apple MobileMe, now iCloud black listed the domain name, even e-mail as long as its contents had the string "www.taobaoring.com" would be sent to the black hole. I asked Apple to rectify the problem, surprisingly, Apple did change the spam settings on MobileMe mail server just for one account holder! But I've ready missed the activation email from taobaoring, to activate my account I need help from taobaoring, their online help is very helpful and they can communicate well in English (don't know how good is their American though ).

Ordering: just copy and paste the items' urls, easy.

Payment: I decided to try Western Union this time. It was o.k. until I need to verify my ID. Well, you better get your passport, finger print, DNA sample ready. I'm not surprise after recent scandal from HSBC ... (actually, you only need to scan the passport).

If you order a tong or more, I think you better instruct them just wrap up the whole tong, or if you prefer, they will take it apart and wrap up individual cake one by one.

Photos of the goods and ask you if it looks o.k.

Then second payment for shipping. I think they have 40% discount on EMS, but no SAL.

All in all, from ordering (1st payment) to cakes at home, just over 2 weeks which is rather good for me.

PSI also find out that there probably no easy way to directly buy from Taobao, even some vendor accept "credit card" (not the credit card as we know it). Well, it has to be registered with a bank in China. I asked Bank of China in the UK (I never set foot in the Bank of China before and that's another experience I don't think I will ever forget!), not even a credit card with them, it cannot be used on Taobao as it is a card from the UK branch ... I really don't know how people do it in HK, Macau or Taiwan. Could they use their credit card or there is some kind of special arrangement?

apache wrote:I just got my order from http://www.taobaoring.com, for those don't have time to read, here is the executive summary:

* good and reliable* responsive* 8% service compare with most agent 10%* no SAL shipping, but good reduction on EMS* can use Western Union which gives a better rate than Paypal when over a few hundreds dollars.* web site is well layout and design* goods are well packed

Here's the details:I got some teething problems registering with them, but the problem wasn't from them, it was because Apple MobileMe, now iCloud black listed the domain name, even e-mail as long as its contents had the string "www.taobaoring.com" would be sent to the black hole. I asked Apple to rectify the problem, surprisingly, Apple did change the spam settings on MobileMe mail server just for one account holder! But I've ready missed the activation email from taobaoring, to activate my account I need help from taobaoring, their online help is very helpful and they can communicate well in English (don't know how good is their American though ).

Ordering: just copy and paste the items' urls, easy.

Payment: I decided to try Western Union this time. It was o.k. until I need to verify my ID. Well, you better get your passport, finger print, DNA sample ready. I'm not surprise after recent scandal from HSBC ... (actually, you only need to scan the passport).

If you order a tong or more, I think you better instruct them just wrap up the whole tong, or if you prefer, they will take it apart and wrap up individual cake one by one.

Photos of the goods and ask you if it looks o.k.

Then second payment for shipping. I think they have 40% discount on EMS, but no SAL.

All in all, from ordering (1st payment) to cakes at home, just over 2 weeks which is rather good for me.

PSI also find out that there probably no easy way to directly buy from Taobao, even some vendor accept "credit card" (not the credit card as we know it). Well, it has to be registered with a bank in China. I asked Bank of China in the UK (I never set foot in the Bank of China before and that's another experience I don't think I will ever forget!), not even a credit card with them, it cannot be used on Taobao as it is a card from the UK branch ... I really don't know how people do it in HK, Macau or Taiwan. Could they use their credit card or there is some kind of special arrangement?

I'm glad taobaoring went well! I may try them sometime in the future if i'm planning on a larger order.

China Post is a real pain sometimes. I had a shipment of tea from China to me in Hong Kong (yes, Hong Kong) rejected and returned to sender because of unknown customs reasons. So, in general, if there's a shipping cost/issue, it's probably not the service provider but China Post that's mucking it up.